Greener and greener

The Paris Agreement and a sharp fall in costs cheered investors in renewable energy

Global spending on renewable energy in 2016 eased back from the record high of the previous year but this reflected the depressed state of capital markets, cheaper installation prices and sluggish economic growth, not a loss of appetite for green power. Many markets were also still digesting the huge volumes of capacity added in earlier years. Taken together, the past two years might be seen as the period when the renewables revolution got moving. Global climate-change talks at the end of 2015 produced a more far-reaching agreement than many expected. And, despite the dip in investment, renewables' share of overall spending grew (while that for oil and gas investment collapsed). Additions to